


New Country for Old Men

by struwwel



Category: Rammstein
Genre: Bickering, Friends to Lovers, Kissing, M/M, Old Friendship, Only One Bed, Slightly Awkward, handjobs (but barely), middle aged fools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:40:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26304298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/struwwel/pseuds/struwwel
Summary: In which Till and Richard are bickering midlife crisis fools who can’t tell each other how much they care without one or two stretches of awkward silence.Set in early May 2020, during the height of social distancing.
Relationships: Richard Kruspe/Till Lindemann
Comments: 26
Kudos: 67





	New Country for Old Men

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moon_waves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_waves/gifts).



> So, anyone remember how Till ended up in hospital and we thought it was Covid? Or how everyone was speculating about Till’s relationship to the band because of that one video from under the stage? Well, so do I. Parts of this was written under the impression of both of those things, the rest is me pining over my second home Mecklenburg and the Baltic Sea and it’s cute little houses. Whichlow, as much as the cabin, is entirely fictional, but it might aswell be real.
> 
> Despite it being one republic, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern indeed restricted travel for non residents under the impression of the pandemic.
> 
> I kinda feel all of this is pretty dumb and disjointed because I just packed everything into it that I couldn’t write into MDBIAA (which will be updated soon, I promise) but wanted to write about. It was fun though. If anyone has half as much fun reading this as I had writing it, my work here is done.
> 
> Gifted to moon_waves because according to that one fanfic thing on tumblr we both like middle aged romance and only one bed plots. The rest of you have no taste.

_Und der Haifisch, der hat Tränen_

_Und die laufen vom Gesicht_

_ Doch der Haifisch lebt im Wasser _

_ So die Tränen sieht man nicht _

**_ Rammstein - Haifisch _ **

**Early May 2020, Berlin/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern**

“You’re overreacting.”

“I am not, you just don’t understand the severity of the situation!!”

Till sighed. It still sounded a little ... _wrong_. The fact Richard could pick up on it even through a spotty phone connection was worrisome. Yet another worrisome thing, on an endlessly growing list of worrisome things. Something else squeezing into his brain next to the endless wave of covid-19 induced craziness. The world looked brittle to him, and raw, and Till acted as if it was just another turn. They had seen the world turn a few times now, sure, but this time it seemed like fortuna’s wheel wasn’t lifting them, it dropped them. The horizon seemed closer, the end, murky and undefined as it was, finally, inevitably closing in.

How far away it was could be anyone’s guess.

He felt like they were fighting it, with small things they still seemed to be able to control. When, how, and if to postpone this impossible Tour. What would they do with the merch they had already printed? (Richard thought that had absolutely no priority right now.) Would they print masks? (Probably, but Flake didn’t like the idea) Who would brief the designer for the new posters, and with what? (Since noone seemed to care, probably him.)

There were other things too. Shopping wasn’t allowed. (According to every loving and overly concerned but ultimately _annoying_ member of his household, who apparently thought _now_ was the perfect time to keep reminding him that he was getting older indeed and smoked too much.) There were the news, twice as always (german and american), and they were even more upsetting than usual. 

At least they’d stopped reporting about his friends ending up in a hospital without telling him about it now.

Talking to Till after _that one_ was still straining. Another piece of End, another thing gradually slipping away. He didn’t understand Till anymore. He wasn’t able to follow him any longer, and it hurt. It should have been a good thing, Till finally pinned into one place and unable to run away, but now that he theoretically could just sneak up to Mecklenburg and visit him without a chance of Till eluding him as always, he kind of felt too angry to actually do it.

He couldn’t even pin point what made him so angry. He didn’t care about the individual things. He’d never minded the other band, he just found it to be a bit stupid. Till and his immature toilet humor. He didn’t mind the weird videos, he just didn’t see why it was necessary. Or how it was so successful. Or why he even spend so much time thinking about it. He just ... _didn’t understand._

He didn’t understand why he was unable to keep Till in a room to talk to him for more than 20 minutes.

Everything seemed to fly by the man in recent years. The recording, the tour, the other tour, the success. It hardly seemed to touch him, he was elusive and yet always in the limelight somehow. Another hookup, another party, another jet around the planet and Till looked like he watched the world burn with resignation and a disconnected smile.

Till called it freedom. Richard felt horribly excluded and jealous, and called it an inappropriately apparent lack of concern.

And then the hospital. The result of another stunt with too little regard for natural restraints. The moment of gut clenching fear he’d gone through at the onslaught of messages alerting him to Till being sick, with a respiratory issue of all things, and of all times _now_ , had been shocking. They were too old now to laugh and dismiss pneumonia as just a cold. One of them would be the first to go, a frightful thought he tried not to entertain too much. He’d assumed it would be cancer one day, the silent killer, and then dismissed it again, telling himself they were all good for another 20 years at least, what with all the medical advancements and all. Age was scary, _allright_ , and the only thing worse than seeing a possible end put infront of him, was the impossibility to get _through_. He wasn’t allowed to visit, the calls were short and limited with Till only being unnerved with his concerns. Even if the false alarm had come in fast, it hadn’t come in fast enough, and the shock and hurt were too hard to shake to fully hide them from someone who was this bad at being cared about.

There would be no lasting additional damage. That’s what the doctors had said according to Till, and Richard could only hope it was the truth. No _additional_ damage because of all the other things Till had already done to his body. Some rest, and he would be fine, appearantly, although it was inevitable that Till’s idea of _rest_ was fucking off to his little seaside cabin he hadn’t gotten around to really use yet, and cough into the phone after a clearly premature departure from care.

Which brought them here, fighting over the phone, because Richard had drawn the short straw and been tasked again with trying to talk some sense into Till and to remind him that 5 other people depended on his voice. He thought Paul would have done a better job. Or Olli. Schneider, possibly, with his stern dad look, and impatience for bullshit. Maybe Flake would have had success with making puppy eyes at Till, only Flake didn’t give a shit about anything either, and so it was on him.

He couldn’t think of someone less suitable. Already, Till teased him and laughed at him, and called him mother hen or busybody and if they’d been in the same room he’d ruffle his hair, only to then accuse him of getting old and soft and too reasonable. 

Till said something to him he couldn’t make out.

“Huh?”

“I said, Richard, what’s up with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve turned into an unbearable fusspot. Relax. You need a holiday.”

“Holidays are cancelled this year too, Till.” Richard rolled his eyes, disbelieving he really still had to explain that.

“What you _need_ ,” Till said in an annoyingly patronising tone, “is to get your pompous ass someplace out of the city. To a beach. Have some fun. Get a massage for your back. You’re always whinging on about it anyway. _Here_ for exemple.”

Richard rolled his eyes. “You know I can’t. Mecklenburg closed the border, as I have told you twice now, and there is a reason we’re not supposed to meet people. It’s also still too cold.” He didn’t _like_ making flimsy excuses. That didn’t mean he was _bad_ at them.

“You’ve gotten old.”

“Till, if rules are reasonable, I might want to follow them.”

“They’re still rules,” Till said grumpily, but then he was silent for a while. “And I swam this morning, it’s perfectly fine.”

“Fucking hell Till, you just were ill!!” The word’s slipped out before he could hold himself back from reprimanding Till in a way that could only ever be unsuccessful.

Before the Virus scare Richard thought he’d given up on that years ago, knowing he’d only earn annoyance and flippant remarks in return, but the remanent fear of not knowing how his friend was doing still sat in his chest too deeply. 

“Yeah, yeah. Just grab a guitar,” Till responded, surprisingly mild. “You’re allowed to go to work, right? Well, this is work then. I have beer. I’ve also _quarantined_ ,” Richard could hear the eyeroll and metaphorical air quotes around the word quarantine, “I shot a pheasant yesterday and I have no plan on what to do with it. I could use a cook.”

“You _know_ I don’t even drink beer. And pheasant tastes too gamey,” Richard said.

”Come on Richard. Please?! I’m bored out of my mind.”

And just like that he ended up in his car, driving all the damn 300 kms and something up to a godforsaken coast village, nervously checking the streets for controls and for police that surely wouldn’t buy the “for work” story on a weekend.

There weren’t any. The land seemed empty. And once again Richard asked himself why, after everything, he still hurried when Till said jump.

***

Till’s newly acquired cabin was a reed roofed, miniture witch’s house out of a fairytale book. Nestled inbetween artifical grassy mounts right behind the dunes, it was set outside a tiny, half abandoned town called Wichlow and where it wasn’t covered with newly done reeds, the red bricks were covered in ivy. 

Till had bought it, because a friend had asked him to save his grandmother’s heritage house from the leaks in the old reeds, and he’d done so without even looking at the place. It had grown on him, once he had looked.

Richard took in the roughly 40 square meters with unconcealed skepticism. The inside of the house only really consisted of one big room, with an aged little kitchen, a round table with carved legs and a fire place. There was a tiny two seater couch and two green velvet armchairs next to the window, and a big double bed squeezed in behind a bookshelf that held all sorts of bits and pieces that would have fitted much better into an outdoor shop.

The small assortment of books that were there were piled up against the freshly painted white walls instead, and there was a 3 square meter bathroom tucked behind the kitchen. It was cozy, no doubt, with the deep brown oak beams contrasting against the white and the blood red persian carpet. It was also, well, _humble_.

“You didn’t think I would want to sleep somewhere after I drive to the end of the world, huh,” Richard complained. “Had I known you only wanted someone to peel your potatoes, I wouldn’t have come.”

Till had already started cooking too, roasting his bird in the oven and washing carrots and potatoes over the sink.

“Stop whining. What, you’re squeamish about sharing a bed now too? You really need a good slap around the ears and two weeks of Rockstar detox.”

“That’s rich, coming from you. And since when are you using words like _detox_ anyway.” Richard decided to ignore the absolute untrue part about him being squeamish and parked his acoustic next to mud crusted wellingtons and a fishing rod. “Can one have a hot shower around here or are you gonna tell me I have to make a trip to the village well first.”

“It’s small, Richard. Not a time machine. You’re still in the 21st century.”

“Could have fooled me,” Richard muttered under his breath, and escaped from the tension by washing off the sticky unpleasantness long car drives always left him with under a perfectly modern, freshly installed rain shower.

After, Till forced him to start a fire against the still chilly nights, bombarding him all through the process with unsolicited advice. Richard knew how to make a fire just fine, thank you very much, and if he struggled a little it was caused by the bad draw from a too short chimney, because who installed fireplaces like this in houses this size. Only when there were flames crackling away and Till served him a perfectly roasted pheasant with beets and roots and potatoes that they ate huddled up in those big, mothball smelling armchairs, Richard started to feel that actually, this could be kind of nice.

He borrowed one of Till’s books, some collection of first person accounts of near death experiences, that was both fascinating and the least depressing one he could find, while his singer scribbled away in one of his flayed notebooks and hummed to himself. Maybe he _had_ needed a holiday. Richard yawned.

“Go to bed, Rich,” Till told him without looking up. “You’ve been yawning non stop for the past 20 mins.”

“I have?”

“Yes. You have.”

“It’s too early to sleep.”

Till closed his notebooks, and looked up at him with unconcealed annoyance.

“Chill, would you? You’re tired. Go to bed. It’s that easy.”

“It’s not. Then I’ll wake up at 7 in the morning and be useless after half of the day.”

“So _be useless_. 7 is great. Wake me up, and I’ll catch mackerel for you.”

“I don’t want to be useless,” Richard said.

“Ok, so explain to me how exactly being not useless during a day that you’re not planning to be useful at makes you less useless.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Go to bed Richard.”

He tried. Till’s bed was comfortable, with just the right amount of hardness to support his always aching back, and softness to evoke that luxurious spa feeling associated with holidays. Till had dug out a second blanket, heavy and comforting but not too warm. He was so tired his eyes were burning - and yet he was tossing and turning back and forth, not being able to find a comfortable position.

Sometimes, when he was on his left side, Richard watched Till for a moment, still hunched over his notebook with his reading glasses sitting slightly crooked on his nose. Then he’d become too uncomfortable again, and turned on his right side, to stare at the black glass wall of the window over him. Then back again. And back.

“You’re stressing me out all the way to here. Settle down, will you?” Till closed his notebook with a soft clap and got up to disperse the glimmering coals in the fireplace.

“The light is bothering me.”

“Well, you’re in luck because I’m gonna hit the sack too. But if you keep tossing that way I’ll tie you to the armchair, fair warning.”

Richard yawned again. “Ok, cool. So when you start snoring I have permission to smother you with a pillow?”

“I don’t snore.”

Richard snorted at that, and Till plunged them into darkness by turning off the lights. He felt the bed dip down as Till settled next to him and moved to give him some more space. The bed easily was big enough for two, despite his earlier reservations.

“What are you so worried about? It’ll all be fine eventually, you know.”

Till’s voice sounded gentler in the dark, almost soothing, as if the wall of teasing and grumpiness had been wiped away along with the light. Richard liked that alot better.

“You can’t possibly know that,” he replied quietly.

“But it _always_ is in the end.”

“How are you _not_ worried? Have you followed the news lately?!”

Till grunted. “Not as much as I maybe should. But it will be ok. We’ll figure it all out, and you’re not alone, you know. Even if you always think that.”

Richard didn’t reply to that, taken aback by how called out he felt. He _did_ feel alone. Alone with his worries, his fears, the feeling of running out of time. And if Till saw that, why did he always have to be so dismissive about it? Was that really necessary?

“Don’t take me so serious,” Till continued calmy. “I worry too, I just deal with it by ignoring it.”

“Great strategy,” Richard pressed out sarcastically. “So basically you ignore everything so you don’t have to worry, andby doing that you make the rest of us worry a bit more on top of everything else.”

Till was silent to that, and Richard basked in the feeling of having won that argument. He turned back to the window, through which he could see nothing but the open sky. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness a little, he started to see the stars, so many many more than over the lit skies of Berlin.

“Nice view,” he offered a bit more amicably, tired of the friction between them.

“I told you, this place is nice.”

“Hmm.”

“Good night, Richard.”

“Good night,” Richard said with a bit of delay, caught up in watching the stars. Somehow, despite everything, he _did_ feel less alone, and soon enough Till’s familiarsoft snoring lulled him to sleep.

***

Defying all odds, Richard actually slept in. His first glance at the clock over the stove, that he could just make out behind the bookshelf, told him the time was 7:47, which was alot better than he had feared. He turned around and watched Till’s naked, motionless back for a while, surprised that he still knew each scar and mark on it and where it had come from. He held himself back from touching it and went back to sleep.

He woke up two hours later, disturbed by Till clattering in a pan, scrambling up eggs with onion. He even brought him a plate to the bed, half dumping it into his lap and informing him that if he wanted coffee, he had to get that himself.

Richard grinned. “Good service. 4 out of 5,one minus for the missing coffee.”

Till showed him a middlefinger and then somehow, against all sense of reason or rationality, persuaded him to go swimming with him. There was a sea bridge, 250m down the beach from the cabin, and Till told him that from it’s end out to a big buoy it was about 450 meters. 

900 m total, in open, ice cold water, and Richard cursed his pride and Till for calling him soft or old or a scaredy cat. He thought this was entirely stupid, an idiotic show of bravado and brusque facade. Completely unnecessary, completely reckless to do especially with someone who’d been seriously ill just a few weeks ago. He still agreed to it, out of wounded pride and out of frustration with Till, who only seemed to do these things to prove that noone else was as extreme as he was. Just for once, Richard didn’t want him to get away with it, wanted to wipe that _stupid_ , provocative smile off his face because Till almost seemed to want him to refuse just to be able to remain Mr. Most Impossible. There was a little bit of worry in there too, because the thought of standing on that bridge and watching his friend out there on his own felt wrong somehow, no matter how self inflicted that was.

He regretted his decision even more the second he dipped his toes into the waves. The water was dark, steel blue, and so cold it pressed all air out of his lungs and attacked his skin with a million needles. He cursed and spit and damned Till to hell and back for the first few meters, and then turned around to wait for the man to climb down the ladder after him. 

Till grinned at him and really tried to look like the cold didn’t bother him, but Richard wasn’t fooled that easily. It was there, in a sharp inhale and the stiff way he forced himself to dive deep right away instead of trying to get used to it slowly.

“Fucking maniac,” Richard cursed, while Till’s head was under water, and started to swim towards the buoy. He wanted to get this over with sooner, rather than later, and it was so cold he urgently needed to move. Till overtook him a moment later, kicking up water while he passed him by with his clockwork freestyle, still showing off with moving like a motorboat even after all these years. Richard didn’t try to fight him, content with making it enough of a workout to not freeze to death before his time.

The water stopped feeling arctic sooner than he had expected, like Till, that big fucking know-it-all, had predicted, and eventually it was just like icy but not totally unpleasant silk around his body. It wasn’t that bad, the early May sun warm on his head, and maybe it wasn’t quite as foolish as he first had believed. Still foolish though.

But by the time he reached the buoy and grabbed on to the orange painted rim of the suddenly very big looking structure, Till had already been there for a while, without moving. He looked cold, lips a blueish tint and pale skin, and yet there he was, smugly grinning ear to ear. 

“Not bad, Kruspe. You might even beat me one day.”

Richard spit out salt water and rolled his eyes.

“I didn’t even try. And if you keep treating your body that way, that day will be there alot sooner than you think.”

Till sighed overdramatically. 

“Can you get off my back?” He actually sounded angry. “I’m a grown up, you know. I don’t need to justify myself to you all the time. Stop smothering me.”

Richard blinked.

“Have you _seen_ yourself? You’re freezing. You were in hospital just weeks ago.”

“I’m fine.”

Richard huffed.

“You’re not, actually.”

“So? I show up, I do the work, so it doesn’t actually concern you, does it.”

Richard stared at him, speechless. That one _hurt_. 

The water was hitting against the buoy, evoking wet, metallic sounds. He was suddenly hyper aware of it, each wave becoming louder with the silence stretching. It was an awful thing to say, Richard found, and it seemed to become more awful with every second of silence that passed.

“Wow. I am oh so sorry I am concerned about my oldest friend,” he finally pressed out sarcastically, and continued to stare down Till, who at least had the decency to swallow and look guilty before he pushed himself away from the buoy and darted back into the water.

Richard went after him.

Till had taught him how to swim properly, back in the day. He’d corrected his form, his breathing, shown him how to even out the natural unbalance in his body by using his weak side more. It had been years since he’d used the knowledge in earnest, but he still remembered. It was a little like riding a bicycle, Till said so himself all the time.

He’d since reverted to running and occasional strength training, but he knew that might be enough today. He was fit, fitter actually than in a while, thanks to having time during the recent weeks, and it was enough to make it worth to put up a fight.

By the time they’d made it half the way back to the seabridge, his lungs were screaming, his limbs aching and he felt dizzy and in a haze with too little oxygen, but he was still head to head with Till and his relentless, machine like strokes through the water.

The cold water had long since stopped feeling like silk, and now felt like a brickwall against his chest, unyielding and heavy as clay. He wanted to give up, leave the swimming to the swimmer more than anything in the world. There were spots of colour floating infront of his vision, the world a nonsensical caleidoscope of sky and water and sky and water, and he wanted it to _stop_. Then he reminded himself that if he felt like giving up, he was just at 40% of his body’s capacity. Atleast he’d heard that once, or read somewhere. He remembered Till’s teasing, the way he hung up on him on the phone or left his house after half an hour, or that last sentence which still rang in his mind and he dug his head in and kept pushing.

In the end, he hit the ladder at the end of the bridge not even half an arm length before Till. In olympic terms, however, that was a lot.

He gasped for air and held on to the metal, looking into Till’s stunned, exhausted face and wordlessly returned the stare of green, upset eyes. Not that he could have spoken if he had wanted to. If he’d get out of the water, he wasn’t sure if he wouldn’t throw up on the spot. It had been years since he’d last pushed his body to the limit that way.

Till was gasping for air as badly as he was, and there was that wheezing sound again that made his stomach clench up with worry. The man looked utterly spent.

Richard broke their eye contact first, and mobilized his last remaining capacities to get out of the water. He picked up the towels they had left on a bench nearby and then waited until his friend had follwed him and stood safely and secure with both feet on the wood planks before he threw the second towel in his face with all the force he could muster.

“You just had fucking _pneumonia_ , Till” he said through clenched teeth and then left him standing there, and walked back to the house to take a hot shower against the incoming muscle pains and the sticky saltwater. The victory felt hollow. Miserable even.

***

They avoided each other the rest of the day. Till mumbled something about preparing for winter, like it was 19-fucking-50, and took the car to only come back hours later with a trailer full of firewood to pile up behind the house. Normally, Richard thought, he would have helped. Today he felt that if Till insisted on overworking himself - well, that couldn’t be helped then. He quickly found all sorts of other things to do, he read, he played some guitar, he took a walk along the beach to a place where the internet on his phone worked better and spend an hour or so mindlessly scrolling through youtube.

Eventually, driven more by hunger than anything else, he made use of the kitchen and made soup out of the pheasant leftovers, broccoli and potatoes. While he watched it simmer away, he listened to the sound of Till’s wood chopping, the satisfying clunk each time the axe was brought down, followed by the softer clattering of piling up the chunks a few moments later. It was a peaceful, domestic setting, and by the end of it he swallowed his pride and brought a bowl of soup outside.

“Thanks,” Till said, his voice sounding clipped, and they ate in companionable misery.

“Are you very upset with me?,” Till finally asked, when they were done eating and had watched the sun sink into the sea from the two wicker chairs infront of the house. It started to get chilly, and Richard hoped they would get inside soon, and wished they could talk there.

He sighed. “Upset isn’t the right word.”

Till waited.

“I don’t know what’s up with you anymore. I feel like the last actual conversation we had was months ago. I ask you how you are, you make a joke. I try to share something with you, you don’t have time. And you never ask or share something in return. And then you say shit like that. Like I’m just your fucking colleague, that you are glad to see the back of every friday.”

Richard pushed himself up and looked down at Till who avoided his eyes and stared into some nondescript place right above the horizon.

“I miss you,” he said quietly. The words feltclumsy and thick on his tongue, like something pelty he wanted to spit out as fast as he could, like something that finally was rejected by his body and needed to be expelled.

Till stilled. It was minute, because he had been motionless to begin with. Richard noticed it more in the absence of a reaction than in him stopping to do anything, like he’d turned into a statue all of a sudden.

He sincerly hoped Till wouldn’t say something obvious like “I am right here.” He needed him to _understand_.

Of course, Till didn’t say anything.

*** 

Richard went to bed first. He was certain Till was avoiding being close to him two hours later, when he still moved in and out of the house, trying to find all sorts of excuses as to why he still needed to be up, moving silently as if trying not to disturb him and utterly failing at it.

By the time he finally took a shower and then crawled into bed, Richards mood had hit rock bottom. He was on his back, staring again out at the sky, that today was alot less starry than yesterday.

“It’s gonna rain tomorrow,” Till said, and settled on his back aswell. “Storm, possibly.”

Richard didn’t feel like that warranted any reply, and turned his head away, fully aware of how childish the gesture was. He felt miserable, chocked and immobilized by the silence.

A warm hand closed around his arm a moment later. Till’s hand felt soft, alot softer than someone’s hand had any right to feel after spending half the day chopping firewood. Gentle fingers brushed the sensitive skin at the inside of his left arm, a little above his wrist. Tentatively at first, and then more regularly back and forth, tracing his veins. Richard resisted the urge to withdraw his arm, because he didn’t want to be an asshole who held people’s unability to apologise in a grown up manner against them. And also, _just a little_ bit, because it felt entirely too good to be caressed that way.

A few minutes later, Till rolled on to the side, forehead bumping into Richards shoulder and fell asleep, hand still tight around his forearm. 

Richard took a deep breath. _I guess this is just how you are_.

***

“Forget it. I am not rematching you.”

Richard slowly but surely lost faith in his own sanity. There was really no other explanation at all for standing here again, at the end of the sea bridge, ready to go back into that freezing water, other than the complete loss of his mind. On a day like this, too, when it was cloudy and grey and not at all like a beautiful May day the way it was supposed to be.

“I will swim out with you, but I’m _not_ racing you again.”

Till grinned.

“Oh, but you should. You only won yesterday because you surprised me, and I didn’t pace myself well.”

“I won, because you aren’t on top of your game and you underestimated me.”

“So it was kind of cheating on your part either way.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Richard said, and gently pushed Till towards the ladder. “You’re stalling.”

“ _You’re_ a coward.”

“Till, I am not gonna be part of you pushing yourself too much because you think I cannot possibly beat you after _I_ just spend weeks working out and _you_ were in hospital. Now get into the water, big shot.”

Till mumbled some indecipherable insult under his breath and then jumped into the water in a graceful arch, splashing icy droplets on Richards skin.

The water really wasn’t any warmer the second time around. In fact, Richard did not remember it to be _quite_ this cold, and when he climbed the steps down into the waves he almost changed his mind.

“Fuck!! Holy shit, that’s _cold_.”

Till laughed at him, swimming momentarily on his back and splashed water into his face.

“Stop!! I hate you. Fuck, it’s so, so cold.”

Till tried to coax him into another race over the first 150 meters or so. He swam irritatingly close to him, matched his pace only to slowly became faster in an attempt to get him to take up the challenge and threw side eyed glances his way.

Richard slowed down in response.

“You’re boring,” Till finally complained with something almost resembling a pout, and took off.

“At least I’ll live longer,” Richard snapped after him.

Today, even the swim out to the buoy wasn’t enough to make the water feel warm. By the time he reached it, his teeth were clattering and all he wanted was to curl up in a blanket in front of the fireplace. That there was another stretch to swim back through, and Till waited for him looking utterly relaxed was very unfair and very annoying.

“Look at you. You look like someone stabbed you and threw you overboard.”

“Thanks. _Very_ kind.”

Till smiled a little, just a twitch to the corners of his mouth and then got serious. He wiped wet hair out of his face, and moved aside to let Richard grab on to a more accessible area of the buoy’s rim. There was a Finnlines ferry passing by not too far away, a big mountain of steel and plastic, bright blue and white against the grey of the sky and the water. Probably on it’s way to Tallinn or Helsinki. Full of passengers who undoubtedly used the sauna alot. Richard was jealous of every single one of them.

“Be careful. That thing’s gonna make waves,” Till warned him.

“I know,” Richard replied, and tried to catch his breath. Why was it so _damn_ cold.

“It’s a daily form thing. The temperature. Sometimes it’s easier to cope with, sometimes it isn’t, no real reason. I had an off day yesterday. That’s why I was cold, and that’s how you beat me, too. I’m really fine. You can stop worrying about me.”

Till’s voice was quiet and serious. Typical. Now, _here_ of all places, he wanted to talk. Richard sighed, teeth still clicking together.

“It’s not just the swimming, Till.”

“I know, but...”

“I’m not stupid. I know that you know what you’re doing. I just worry that sometimes you don’t care what the consequences of what you’re doing could be.”

Till looked at him, but his eyes were darting around like he found it hard to keep eye contact.

“Consequences like what.”

“Like ... look I get it. You take the risks you take because you ... I guess you can live better with getting hurt than with not doing those things. But we don’t want to see you hurt. You know?”

Richard started water treading just to keep himself at least a little less frozen.

“And then you say shit like yesterday. That it doesn’t concern us, as long as you show up and do the work?! _What the fuck?!_ ”

Till dropped his gaze. He did look sad now, which was at last a somewhat normal reaction.

“Is that really what you think?” 

“Richard .... No. Of course not.”

“Then _why_ say it?” That was the part that really had Richard wonder.

“You don’t make time for us, you don’t listen to us, you disappear constantly. It’s like you hate being around us.”

“The others haven’t complained.”

Richard took a deep breath.

“Fine. It’s like you hate being around _me_.”

“Richard...” Till said, a warning note in his voice.

“Don’t _Richard_ me. If you have a problem with me just talk to m...”

“Richard, _the waves_!”

The waves piled up and left in it’s wake by the ferryship were finally reaching them. They weren’t big, not in this calm patch of a generally calm sea, but next to the buoy, they were still dangerous. Till darted between him and the big metal structure with a panicked look on his face that Richard wasn’t sure was entirely warranted, and kept him from slamming into it by grabbing his arms. Then the world tilted and they were lifted up along with the buoy and dropped down again a considerable height.

And once more.

And again.

The fourth wave was already considerably smaller.

Till released a loud huff of air. Richard had to laugh, his heart beating a little fast. It had been a bit scary, but thrilling equally and the release was funny to him, like overlooking a car when crossing the street was, after you jumped back at the last second.

“For fuckssake, Richard, be careful!” Till snapped at him, the panic still open in his face. Richard shrugged. He was fine.

Till still held on to him, seeming to wait for the waves to fully subside, which was nice Richard supposed, but also really not necessary.

“See? The way you felt just there about me is the way I constantly worry about you. Glad to see you care though,” he finally offered, feeling a little smug at finding a reasonable explanation for why Till’s behaviour was so worrisome, and relieved he seemed to not hate him enough to let him drown.

Till shook his head and finally met his eyes. His face was very close to him now, so close he could feel his warm breath hitting his skin. Till’s arm was still a secure presence around his shoulders. 

The melancholy in his expression caught him off guard. He looked so forlorn all of a sudden, sad even, and afraid. There definitely was something wrong.

Richard felt like someone had dropped hot stones into his stomach, a dark foreboding edging in on the corners of his mind. Oh god, what if Till was really sick. Or tired of him. What if he wanted to quit the band at last. Maybe he had Alzheimers. Or Parkinson. ALS! God forbid they had found something else in the hospital, something like ...

Till _kissed_ him.

Just like that. A real kiss, not a peck. Lips pressing on his, like he was in love with him or something.

It wasn’t very pleasant. It was clumsy and a little off target because of the way they were still tossed about by the waves and because Till probably tried to hold himself back from doing it down to the last second. It was cold and wet with salt water, and Till’s lips were a bit chaffed and the stubble on his chin a bit too scratchy. It was also way too short to fix it.

Richard forgot how it felt the second it was over really. He didn’t forget that it happened however. Or how Till’s thumb had run along his cheekbone, smoothing out all the rough edges of a truthfully terrible kiss and molding it into something Richard really hadn’t been prepared for.

Not that he had been prepared to be kissed by Till in any other way either.

“I’m sorry, I ... I really don’t hate being around... around you.” Till stumbled and shook his head in denial, looking wide eyed and confused. “Sorry,” he said, definitely full on panicked now, and pushed himself away, taking a deep dive that put him lengths out of reach before his head broke the surface again.

“Don’t worry about it,” Richard whispered after him, still very much stunned. He watched his friend take of with strangely off beat movements and spend at least 5 more minutes marinating in the ice cold water and his unability to make sense of what had just happened.

***

Till waited for him at the end of the bridge, but only to let him get close enough to make sure he would arrive safely before he took off towards the house.

“Who’s the coward now,” Richard murmured to himself, but wasn’t actually mad anymore. This was understandable at least.

By the time he reached the cabin, Till was hunched over the fireplace and in the process of ruining a number of match sticks in order to get a fire going. His back was demonstratively turned to the door.

“You need smaller splinters for it to catch,” Richard advised, the exact advice he had received the other day. He watched him struggle while he was towel drying his hair and stared at the spot where Till’s hair stopped and his neck started, the way the blonde streaks turned to grey at the root. He’d never noticed how his hair formed a little peak there, pointing down his back. 

“For how long?” he finally broke the silence.

Till shrugged.

“Forever. Yesterday. Does it really matter?” he answered after a pause, voice low and flat.

“I guess not, but Till, I ...”

“... can we not talk about it? Please. I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh, of course you don’t,” Richard snapped and threw his towel past Till’s head on one of the green velvet armchairs.

“Silly me, what did I expect?”

***

Richard fled from Till’s refusal to communicate by taking a nice, long shower, turning the water to close to scalding and letting it massage his muscles that still ached from yesterday. When he was done, he took extra time shaving, extra time drying and fixing his hair, and then ample time to rummage around in his backpack to find that one sweater he could have sworn he’d taken with him and that he really needed right now to feel _just so_.

“Are you leaving?” Till asked, voice sounding brittle. He’d withdrawn into one of the armchairs, perched there like a mistrusting tomcat.   


Richard paused.

“Do you _want_ me to leave?”

“No.”

“Well, then I’m not leaving.”  


***

Outside, it started to rain. It rained in thick, drumbeat droplets, a neverending stream of water that roughened up the sea and would soak you in a minute flat. It turned the cozy cabin into something claustrophobic, something he couldn’t leave without paying for. To do something other than listen to the clock tick or count the pages of his books he couldn’t concentrate on, Richard cooked, pasta bolognese because there wasn’t really anything else left.

“You could have gone shopping yesterday,” he nagged, because he just wanted to say something, anything.

Till pretended to write in his notebook.

“Are you gonna come eat with me?” He asked, once he’d done the best with what he had.

“I’m not really hungry,” Till claimed, but did get up to join him at the table. He looked childlike with his fork and spoon pointing upwards while Richard was serving him.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Outside, the first distant thunder was rolling in. Eating together was painfully awkward.

While Richard was washing up, Till disappeared into the bathroom. He took an awfully long time, and Richard spend most of it fingering the same three uninteresting chords on his acoustic while mainly listening to the water running. Eventually he gave up, and crawled into bed, tired of trying to do anything but cuddling up under a blanket, watch the fire dance and listen to the storm outside. It felt like defeat, but there was relief in that too and the warmth of the fire and the white noise of the rain outside turned into a melancholic blanket, comforting in it’s familiarity. He thought of Till kissing him and wished he wasn’t so damn touch starved. Or for Till not to be such a stubborn fuck, he wasn’t entirely sure.  
  


***

He woke up from a cracking thunder right above his head, so loud it made him sit up straight up with a start, heart beating in his throat. Lightning made the dark sky flicker outside and together with the light from the fire, it created a supernatural atmosphere in the room that left him disoriented for a few seconds.

“Fuck.” His heart was still racing way too fast, stuttering in slowly fading fear.

“You ok?” Till looked over to him from the small couch, book in his lap.

“I ... yeah, I think so. What time is it?”

“Half past midnight.”

Richard sighed, and rubbed his eyes. There was a headache starting to form over his nose, and he felt strange from the shock and falling asleep too early.

“Come to bed, Till.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I’m sure.”

Till put his book to the side and got up clumsily. He added two more logs to the fire and stalled by poking around in the coals a bit more, until he seemed to be satisfied with the state of the flames. When he turned around he looked even more insecure, hands on his hips as if still deciding what to do next.

“Can you get some water on the way?” Richard asked. “My head is killing me.”

Till took time even with that, but the result was a glass of iced, sparkling water with even some hint of lemon that he pressed into Richard’s hands with an unusual amount of care before he sat down at the edge of the bed.

“You’re not getting Corona, are you?” he asked, mouth twitching a little but still with honest concern.

Richard grinned a little despite himself. “Nah. Just slept weird I think.”

Till watched Richard drink patiently, a soft look in his eyes that made him feel as if all the focus and care he’d been missing over the past months had been condensed right into this moment and now poured out over him. It made him blush, heat rising into his face and his stomach. 

“You’re staring.”

“You’re worth staring at.”

Richard handed his empty glass back for Till to set it on the floor, and wondered what it was with the man and his disjointed communication timeline.

“So you can only have a serious conversation in ice cold water and only be open with me when I’m half asleep?”

“Yeah.”

“ _Great_.”

Till shrugged and finally crawled into the bed and under the blanket. He looked up at Richard, who was still half sitting, a hand under his cheek and still with that terribly touching look in his eyes.

_Fuck this_ , Richard thought.

“If I suggest we try that kissing thing again, are you gonna freak out?” he asked. It came out a bit too hoarsly, thanks to the lump in his throat that hopefully, _definitely_ , wasn’t corona.

“... _are_ you suggesting it?”

“Yeah.”

“Then probably, yeah.”

“Ok, well don’t freak out ok.”

Kissing wasn’t any less awkward the second time around. Richard’s position put painful amounts of weight on his forearm, Till was _painfully_ shy, and there was just absolutely no way in the universe to ignore how weird this was. This wasn’t a joke, not an act for a video, not a drunk display of touch starved, hormone driven affection.

At the beginning, it wasn’t a lot more than just letting their lips linger around a little, feeling after it, and not even really a kiss.

To be honest, it was a bit like they had both temporarily forgotten how kissing was supposed to work. That you were supposed to find a mutual rhythm. That breathing helped. That if you wanted to deepen a kiss, it wasn’t enough to just open your mouth a little, only to then loose the courage to use your tongue at the last second and panic. Richard felt horribly embarrassed, because he wanted a taste of that more than anything and just couldn’t bring himself to do it, which looked like it made it happening increasingly unlikely.  


Kissing was also so, _so_ sweet. Till’s lips felt warm and velvety against his after the ice in his water. He held his face between his big hands as if it were something precious and fragile and brushed the corners of his mouth with his thumbs in a way that made a heavy, honey flavored sweetness pool in Richard’s stomach, as if he’d eaten too many cherries straight from the tree.

It was telling enough, he thought, that two people could kiss this awfully and he still never wanted it to end.

Maybe it was the deep affection in there somewhere. Maybe decades of standing each other through alot worse than bad kisses did that to you. Maybe, if you decided to kiss despite all of that, it could never be not amazing, no matter how terrible it was.

His arm started to hurt in earnest and Richard shifted a bit to be more comfortable, and somehow _that_ did the trick. Maybe because it send a signal that no, he did not want to stop doing this, infact he was settling in to keep doing this for quite a while, Till found the guts todeepen the kiss a little. There was a soft flick of a tongue against his upper lip, that plunged him right into a whirlwind of confusion over how anything in the world could feel this good or this exciting.

Till pushed his arm under his neck, drawing him into a tight embrace, his second hand grabbing his hip and pulling him close. Richard stifled some embarrassing sound that wanted to escape him and opened his mouth, relieved that Till followed his lead and didn’t withdraw anymore when their tongues met.   


Considering they made music for a living they were still horribly out of sync, but hell, Schneider never had to know about this, and kissing during a thunderstorm was already cringy to begin with. And nice.   
  
_Very_ nice.

Richard felt like wrapped into a cocoon, with no real recollection of how he’d gotten here, with a growing hard on and Till licking into his mouth with finally the skill of the horny bastard that he was. It was _good_ though, getting hard from being tactile with someone you genuinly liked wasn’t the _worst_ feeling in the world by any means, and Till’s dick pressing into his hip was very comforting too, the way being liked by a stray dog was, only the really sexy version of that.

“Let me get you off,” Till mumbled against his lips.

“Uh, _what_?!”

Till rolled his hips against him, holding him even closer, and Richard felt like his entire body was on fire. It felt _so_ _good_ , so damn good, a warm strong body against his under a cozy blanket. It felt so good to be held, to rub up against something as real as skin and touch and smell to remind him he was a real human being with uncomplicated needs and not just a bag of nerves dropped into a world with nothing to hold on too.

“Let me touch you. _Please_.” There was so much real yearning in Till’s voice, and that made everything complicated, a lot more complicated than the sweetness of simply making out in the middle of a storm. Of course Till _couldn’t_ just be a horny bastard, no, he had to be a horny bastard with ample amount of _decency_ who dropped decisions into his lap that he really didn’t want to make right now.

“We can’t!!” Richard said, suddenly horrified.

“Why?” Till was still kissing him, seductively licking over his lips and it felt so good Richard just wished Till had never asked.

“We can do anything we want.” Till’s hands were freely roaming his body now, stroking his back, shoulders and raking through his hair. “And I want you. Always have.”

“The band, the guys, everything ... Till we _can’t_!”

He pushed himself away a little, to clear his head more than anything else. Their eyes met, and Till’s were so open, honest and now full of regret Richard felt like the air was knocked out of him just like when he’d gone swimming in the cold. 

Till’s hands fell a away from him, leaving him bereft and lonely, two people on seperate islands again.

“Ok,” Till said, softly. “Ok.”

It wasn’t ok, not in the slightest.

“I mean we can’t, _right_? I mean what if ... what if we can’t make it work, what if we start hating each other. We can’t risk everything that way, it’s way too complicated, we can’t act on this... Right?!”

Till rubbed his face. 

“I guess not,” he said, dropping his gaze. “We don’t have to ever mention it again.”

He moved, and with a start Richard realised he was about to get out of bed.

“Where are you going?!”

“What do you _think_ , Richard.” Till’s voice sounded toneless and bitter, pressed out between a tight jaw. “Jerk off and take a very cold shower.”

Richard felt himself blush furiously at the thought, and horrified at the notion of staying behind. He really didn’t want _that_ either.

“No,” he said, scrambling to hold on to Till’s arm. “No, please don’t go.”

Till looked at him expressionless. Rejected. Defensive. _Hurt_.

“What, are you getting some kick out of me wanting you and not getting any?”

“What, are you just gonna run away any time I don’t give you what you want right away?” Richard snapped back.

They stared at each other silently, caught up in another match Richard didn’t think he really wanted to win this time. Till’s empty expression slowly changed into positively mortified. Then he relaxed and eased himself back to bed.

“That sounds awful when you put it like that.”

“You could just think of that time in Moscow when I puked all over your shoes,” Richard suggested helpfully, and pulled at the arm he was still holding onto until they were facing each other again.

Till rolled his eyes. “Not working.”

“I just got scared,” Richard said apologetically, and closed the gap between them for a tight hug, desperate to get back into that that warm cocoon.

“I got scared too. I’m sorry I pushed you.”

Till seemed hesitant still, but just as with kissing before, all it took was some time until they were back to a tight embrace and affectionate touches. Richard let his fingers trail through bleached strands of hair, Till ran a hand over his collarbone, over his shoulder and gently massaged his back. Richard played with the hem of Till’s shirt, unsure if pushing his hand under it was acceptable again, and Till was stroking the hair at his temple and then brushed Richard’s cheek with the back of his hand.

“May I kiss you some more?” he mumbled and leaned his forehead against him for support.

“Please do.”

Till kissed his cheek first. “Look at you. Still so beautiful.” His voice was hoarse.

Richard huffed. “I’m...”

“ _Beautiful_ ,” Till insisted and pressed soft lips against his, effectively silencing any protest.

They’d definitely gotten the hang of it now, rhythm and everything, and Richard soon explored Till’s mouth with a hunger that made his breath catch with a click inthroat a few times. He pressed himself up against him, and it occurred to him that it was very senseless to say they _couldn’t_ , when very clearly they _could_ , because they _did_ , dicks touching and everything. “I want you, too,” he whispered against Till’s lips and felt exceptionally kitschy. 

“Fuck, Richard!” Till broke away and buried his face at his shoulder, breath quick and heavy. Their hips were locked together, slwoly moving back and forth, and Richard didn’t think he could have stopped pushing if he had wanted to.

“I’m getting too old for this,” Richard said grimly, and because he knew Till wouldn’t dare anything again after that senseless, _stupid_ freak out episode, he took his hand and placed it on the bulge in his pants.

_ Fuck being afraid. _

“Why?” Till flashed him an out of breath grin so dirty, he almost wanted to hit him. “Everything’s working as it should, is it not.”

But he kissed him again, slow and sweet kisses along his jaw, and then a real one, licking into his mouth like his life depended on it. His thumb was brushing his cheek comfortingly.

Carefully.

_Lovingly_.

“Don’t you think it’s a little late for... “

Richard paused, confused.

“Us?”

“Yes.”   


_Us_.

“Nah,” Till said breathlessly and his touch felt so good Richard didn’t even care if he lived to see the next day.

“We’re good to go for another 20 years. _At least_.”


End file.
